How to make ToonTalk puzzles

How to make ToonTalk puzzles

Recommended for advanced users.

You can make your own puzzles to give to others.

A puzzle is described by a file with the following parts:

Introductory text. This is the text that Marty will speak when you see him.
Wall text. This is the text that you see on the wall. If the text includes a string of #s then they are covered by a picture of the goal.
Initial stuff on the floor. The way to create this is to arrange just the item you want on the floor and then press control-c and paste the result into the file. Note that your hand should be empty. Also Tooly and his friends Dusty, Pumpy, Maggie, and the main notebook will not be included. Copies of them made by the magic wand will, however, be saved.
Goal. Create the object that is the solution. If it doesn't have to be exact you can vacuum off some of the details. Drop the item on the clipboard object on page 30 of your sensor notebook (on page 4 of your main notebook). Paste the result.
Robots who decide if answer is good or bad. This field is optional (i.e. can be skipped). The robot, or team of robots, will be given a box whose first hole contains the player's answer. The second hole contains a bird. The robots should give the bird a box with 2 holes. The first hole should contain 1 if the answer is OK and 0 if not. The second hole can contain a text pad which Marty will say.
Options. The useful options are:
- Goal box: 40 44 31 16 This says show the goal on the wall at 40,44 and its size is 31×16. (Size in percent of width or height of screen.) It is usually easier to add ### to the wall text. (See #2 above.)
- NumberTyping = off Can't type numbers.
- TextTyping = off Can't type text.
- Flipping = off Can't flip things over.
- FunctionKeys = off Can't use function keys to call for tools.
- BringInVacuumWhenRobotFails = off Dusty won't appear when a robot fails.
- GoodSolutionsPosted = off Good answer aren't posted in the rocket ship.
Hints. Each time you come back to Marty he'll give one of these hints. Each hint is separated by a blank line.

Each of these 6 or 7 parts of a puzzle are separated by blank lines. By convention the file name extension is PZL. ToonTalk puzzles are all named p<some number>.pzl. You can try your puzzles by starting ToonTalk with -puzzle <puzzle file name> in the command line. Or you can double click on the puzzle (if its extension is named PZL). When a puzzle is solved and the puzzle name ended with a number then the system will try to load the next puzzle. E.g. after solving puz27.pzl, ToonTalk will look for puz28.pzl. If you make some neat puzzles please send them in to be added to the ToonTalk web site.